This invention relates, generally, to land vehicles and, more particularly, to vehicles of the tank truck type adapted for transporting fluid, pulverous, granular and/or chipped material and, in particularly, for transporting oil.
Conventional tank truck vehicles generally comprise standard trucks equipped with cabins and longitudinally extending frames constructed of interconnected beams. Such a conventional tank truck vehicle is normally subsequently fitted with a container onto the beam frame for transporting fluid or pulverous material and the like.
Since it is usually economically efficient for conventional tank truck vehicles to be designed for as universal use as possible, such vehicles are generally designed to be capable of withstanding the most rigorous use taking into account the possibilities that in some applications the vehicle may become overloaded. This, for example, in the case of the transport of timber, should the vehicle travel over uneven roads or around sharp turns, the timber has a tendency to shift within the transporting container whereupon the load will be unevenly applied on the wheels on one side of the tank vehicle.
Because of the desirability and, in some cases, necessity of designing the tank vehicle for the most severe payload condition, a relatively low ratio of actual payload to dead weight of the vehicle is usually obtained. Of course, this is not economically desirable.
Further, conventional tank truck vehicles are relatively costly in manufacture due to their particular construction as described above. The connection of the axle systems to the frame structure of conventional tank truck vehicles is relatively complicated and, further, conventional tank truck vehicles present a high air resistance due to their configuration.